A question via twitter from ‘Feria Urbanism’ (hi there..): should Liverpool fear the loss of UNESCO World Heritage Site status? The question refers to Peel Holdings’ ‘Liverpool Waters’, 60 hectares of waterfront office and retail development. My reply? No – not that the loss of UNESCO status is unlikely, but that the city shouldn’t fear it. I say this through experience of two cities where UNESCO status, however well meant, has been negative in impact.

First, Brasilia. Here, Lucio Costa’s monumental pilot plan for the city has been preserved since 1987, with the effect that this is one of the few places where you can still have a completely immersive experience of late 1950s modernism. This is great for art historians and their students, and indeed, for me – belting along the 14km Eixo Rodoviaria (Highway Axis) on a sunny day is one of the great experiences of twentieth century…

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Cedric Price

"We remained reasonably good friends until I was about to be called up to the army. I remember Basil Spence was then president of the RIBA. He said to me: 'The army will do you a load of good.' And I thought, 'You cunt,' and I never spoke to him again."

JG Ballard

“It’s trademark stood beside the gates, a Chinese teapot three storey high built entirely from green bricks. During the Sino-Japanese war of 1937 it had been holed by shell-fire and now resembled a puncture globe of the earth. Thousands of the brick had migrated across the surrounding fields to the villages beside the works canal, incorporated in the huts and dwellings a vision of a magical rural China.’

Iain Sinclair

‘Drifting through Wapping, copying inscriptions on gravestones removed from their original setting, I heard a commotion of marmosets in Scandrett Street."

Thomas Pynchon

"The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think that science can do anything and those who are afraid it will."